For any true connoisseur of life's ironies, there can be few finer than
the fact that the radical Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) is chiefly remembered
for this completely traditional and eminently conservative tale.
We needn't rehearse the elements of the story in detail because virtually
every English speaking youth on the planet reads it in school. Just
to jog your memory, Silas Marner is a devoutly religious weaver who is
unjustly accused of theft. He moves to Raveloe where he becomes fairly
reclusive both because he wishes it so and because the villagers find him
odd. He devotes himself to the accumulation of wealth, but is once
again devastated, this time when he is the victim of theft. Ultimately
he is redeemed by a young girl who wanders up to his door. He raises
the child and they come to love one another as Father and Daughter.
The lesson being that neither religious fanaticism nor the love of filthy
lucre will suffice to save a man's soul, but the basic love between two
humans will do the trick.

It's a fairly simple and straightforward story about the capacity of
love to heal spiritual wounds and make damaged beings whole, hence its
power. Her other novels are in vogue right now, particularly the
unreadable Middlemarch, but this is clearly Eliot's best and one
of the most affecting novels of the 19th Century.